In the four provinces of Ireland there are thirty-two counties. Each county and its people have their own traditions, beliefs and folklore - and each one is also inhabited by the Sidhe: an ancient and magical race. Some believe they are descended from fallen angels, whilst others say they are the progeny of Celtic deities. They go by many names: the good folk, the wee folk, the gentle people and the fey, but are most commonly known as 'the fairies'. These are not the whimsical fairies of Victorian and Edwardian picture books. They are feared and revered in equal measure, and even in the twenty-first century are spoken of in hushed tones. The fairies are always listening. Storyteller Steve Lally and his wife singer-songwriter Paula Flynn Lally have compiled this magnificent collection of magical fairy stories from every county in Ireland. Filled with unique illustrations that bring these tales to life, Irish Gothic Fairy Stories will both enthral and terrify readers for generations to come.

"The purpose of this church shall be as revealed in the New Testament, to win people to faith in Jesus Christ and commit them actively to the church, to help them to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ that increasingly they may know and do His will, and to work for the unity of all Christians and with them engage in the common task of building the kingdom of God."

"A Pioneer Church in the Oconee Territory" will take you on a journey from the early settlement of Mannakin Town, Virginia, to the Scull Shoals Community on the east bank of the Oconee River in northern Georgia. This journey was actually made by the early ancestors of the Antioch Christian Church during the Oconee Indian Wars and at the beginning of the American Restoration Movement.

Today Antioch Christian Church is still the location of Scull Shoals voting precinct. Anyone who loves American history, genealogy, and has an interest in the early association between church and state will find "A Pioneer Church in the Oconee Territory" an invaluable reference. It contains facts of 'the way it was" as far back as 1793 and the way life in America transpired within rural Georgia.

Nestled between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, and stretching from Hampton Roads to Assateague Island, Virginia's Eastern Shore is a distinctly southern place with an exceptionally southern taste. In this inviting narrative, Bernard L. Herman welcomes readers into the communities, stories, and flavors that season a land where the distance from tide to tide is often less than five miles. Blending personal observation, history, memories of harvests and feasts, and recipes, Herman tells of life along the Eastern Shore through the eyes of its growers, watermen, oyster and clam farmers, foragers, church cooks, restaurant owners, and everyday residents. Four centuries of encounter, imagination, and invention continue to shape the foodways of the Eastern Shore of Virginia, melding influences from Indigenous peoples, European migrants, enslaved and free West Africans, and more recent newcomers. Herman reveals how local ingredients and the cooks who have prepared them for the table have developed a distinctly American terroir--the flavors of a place experienced through its culinary and storytelling traditions. This terroir flourishes even as it confronts challenges from climate change, declining fish populations, and farming monoculture. Herman reveals this resilience through the recipes and celebrations that hold meaning, not just for those who live there but for all those folks who sit at their tables--and other tables near and far.

"20 Sussex Churches" provides a concise and accessible introduction to the parish churches of Sussex reflecting the region's rich cultural history. Simon Watney has selected 20 buildings which represent the country's changing fortunes from Anglo-Saxon times to the 20th century. Ranging from grand urban buildings to remote and often humble country churches, as much attention is paid to the remarkable monuments and furnishings they contain, including murals and stained glass, as to their architecture. The question of why churches matter in the modern world, and the many kinds of pleasure they can provide to Christians and non-Christians alike, is also explored.

As an archaeologist, Steven Mithen has worked on the Hebridean island of Islay over a period of many years. In this book he introduces the sites and monuments and tells the story of the island's people from the earliest stone age hunter-gatherers to those who lived in townships and in the grandeur of Islay House. He visits the tombs of Neolithic farmers, forts of Iron Age chiefs and castles of medieval warlords, discovers where Bronze Age gold was found, treacherous plots were made against the Scottish crown, and explores the island of today, which was forged more recently by those who mined for lead, grew flax, fished for herring and distilled whisky - the industry for which the island is best known today. Although an island history, this is far from an insular story: Islay has always been at a cultural crossroads, receiving a constant influx of new people and new ideas, making it a microcosm for the story of Scotland, Britain and beyond.

A reader-friendly, fully illustrated colour guide to Robert Burns' time in Edinburgh, with fresh research, maps and illustrations of the key people Burns met, with 27 relevant poems by Burns throughout. With over 100 illustrations by David Alexander and 80 photographs by Jerry Brannigan of key people and places Burns encountered. Easy to follow routes and walking guides in Edinburgh arranged by area and place/people. Tourist information about each site. Robert Burns came to Edinburgh in November 1786 and stayed for 14 months. His book, Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, Kilmarnock Edition , went on sale on July 31, 1786 and was an immediate success throughout Scotland. Suddenly,he was being spoken of the length and breadth of the land. His plan to emigrateto Jamaica with any profit from the sales of the book was abandoned. Burns's life was about to change! Dr Thomas Blacklock, known as the Blind Poet, came to know of the book. Blacklock was a much respected poet and critic, acquainted with the cream of literary society in Scotland and he advised Burns to travel to the nation's capital where a larger edition was promised. Blacklock was sure it would have a more universal circulation than "anything else that had been published within his memory". So it was that on November 27, 1786 that Robert Burns, on a borrowed pony, set off on the two-day journey to Edinburgh. It was at the peak of the Scottish Enlightenment. Edinburgh at the time was home to great philosophers, world-renowned economists, engineers, scientists, writers and poets. Enterprise and industry were flourishing. Robert Burns was to find himself thrust into the midst of the social and academic whirlpool that was Edinburgh in 1786, establishing him as a vital part of the Scottish Enlightenment. This book chronicles the places he visited and the brilliant, eccentric, but always fascinating people he met during his stay. Places including Lodge Canongate Kilwinning No. 2, The Kirk of the Canongate, Old Calton Burial Ground, St. Cecilia's Hall, Pear Tree House, The Luckenbooths and many more. People including, The Duchess of Gordon, Lord Monboddo, James (Balloon) Tytler, Bishop John Geddes, (Indian) Peter Williamson and a host more. Learn of his meeting with a young Sir Walter Scott, and - let's not forget - Mrs Agnes McLehose, his Clarinda, and inspiration for Ae Fond Kiss. Robert Burns left Edinburgh on March 24, 1788. He was only 29. He was to die in Dumfries eight years later at the age of 37.

An illustrated collection of Singapore truth and trivia, Singapore at Random is filled with anecdotes, statistics, quotes, diagrams, facts, advice, folklore and other unusual and often useful tidbits. This veritable treasure trove of information on Singapore is arranged, as the title suggests, randomly, so that readers will come to expect the unexpected on each and every page. Designed in a charmingly classic style and peppered with attractive illustrations, Singapore at Random is a quirky and irresistible celebration of everything you didn't know you wanted to know about this unique and unmissable country. This new edition of Singapore at Random provides the answers to these and many other fun and fascinating questions about the city state.

It was love at first sight. We drove up the long track, pulled into the yard, and wow! What a view. I did the drawings myself, the maximum we were told (in those days) about what one could get away with in terms of planning permission. A local architect did the formal drawings and submitted them for planning permission. I did not intend to do the work myself, it simply happened by circumstance. I put the groundwork out to tender to six contractors. Only one bothered to reply and the quotation was astronomic. The steelwork looked very complicated, but I went to the structural engineer's office in Gloucester to chat about it. I asked: 'It looks complicated, but could I do this myself?' Peter Rowntree was very reassuring. 'It looks complicated because you are looking at it in its entirety. Let me show you this corner here.' And he then explained how the steels fitted together and how one wired them up. After a quarter of an hour, he summarised by saying 'Yes, you could do it.' And I did! Working only on Saturdays, and even then, not every Saturday, it took me seven years to complete it to a point where we could move into the extension. I was extremely sad to leave Hydefield and putting this book together has been cathartic. I was tremendously proud of what I managed to build and have wanted to produce this photo book to bring back the memories of every little achievement.

Cornwall has changed much over the last 100 years or so. Disused tin mines can be found scattered across the landscape together with signs of other long-forgotten industries. An old china clay pit at Bodelva is now the very popular Eden Project. With the introduction of the railway, fruit and other produce was able to be distributed all over the country. It also meant an influx of visitors each summer as people from across the country flocked to the beautiful Cornish beaches.Today, many of the trades that were once commonplace in Cornwall are now long gone and, for many, the area is a place for holidays featuring beautiful beaches and coastal walks. Places like Newquay attract many tourists and surfers and Fistral Beach hosts regular competitions. This book shows the changing face of Cornwall from a hive of industry to a popular tourist destination.

Norfolk has a wealth of important archaeological sites, historic buildings and landscapes. This guide is the first to use them to tell the county's rich history. Starting with real footprints of people who lived here nearly 1 million years ago, A History of Norfolk in 100 Places will take you on a chronological journey through prehistoric monuments, Roman forts, medieval churches and Nelson's Monument, right up to twentieth-century defensive sites. With detailed entries illustrated by aerial photographs and ground-level shots, here you will find a reliable guide to historic places that are either open to the public, or are visible from public roads or footpaths for you to explore.

This City Now sets out to retrieve the hidden architectural, cultural and historical riches of some of Glasgows working-class districts. Many who enjoy the fruits of Glasgows recent gentrification may be surprised and delighted by the gems which Ian Mitchell has uncovered beyond the usual haunts.

Discover hidden gems around Birmingham with 20 walking routes. Featuring 20 walks in and around the city, including lesser-known circuits and details on popular walks. Accompanied by guided walking instructions and written by local experts, A-Z Birmingham Hidden Walks is the perfect way to explore the city in a new light. Small enough to fit in a bag or pocket, this handy guidebook is ideal for tourists or locals looking to discover more about the city. Each route varies in length from 1 to 6 miles (1.6 to 9.6 km), and is clearly outlined on detailed A-Z street mapping. * 20 walking routes with instructions and maps * Full-colour photographs of hidden gems and city attractions * Key sights and locations clearly marked on map * Information such as start/finish points, nearest postcodes, distance and terrain included More from the A-Z Hidden Walks series: A-Z Birmingham Hidden Walks A-Z Bristol & Bath Hidden Walks A-Z Edinburgh Hidden Walks A-Z London Hidden Walks A-Z Oxford Hidden Walks A-Z York Hidden Walks A-Z Brighton Hidden Walks A-Z Cambridge Hidden Walks A-Z Manchester Hidden Walks A-Z Liverpool Hidden Walks

During the late twentieth century, the number of museums in the UK dramatically increased. Typically small and independent, the new museums concentrated on local history, war and transport. This book asks who founded them, how and why. In order to find out more, Fiona Candlin, a professor in museology, and Toby Butler, an expert oral historian, travelled around the UK to meet the individuals, families, community groups and special interest societies who established the museums. The rich oral histories they collected provide a new account of recent museum history - one that weaves together personal experience and social change while putting ordinary people at the heart of cultural production. Combining academic rigour with a lively writing style, Stories from small museums is essential reading for students and museum enthusiasts alike. -- .

The cultural diversity of America is often summed up by way of a different metaphors: Melting Pot, Patchwork, Quilt, Mosaic--none of which capture the symbiotics of the city. Few neighborhoods personify the diversity these terms connote more than New York City's Lower East Side. This storied urban landscape, today a vibrant mix of avant garde artists and street culture, was home, in the 1910s, to the Wobblies and served, forty years later, as an inspiration for Allen Ginsberg's epic Howl. More recently, it has launched the career of such bands as the B-52s and been the site of one of New York's worst urban riots.

In this diverse neighborhood, immigrant groups from all over the world touched down on American soild for the first time and established roots that remain to this day: Chinese immigrants, Italians, and East European Jews at the turn of the century and Puerto Ricans in the 1950s. Over the last hundred years, older communities were transformed and new ones emerged. Chinatown and Little Italy, once solely immigrant centers, began to attract tourists. In the 1960s, radical young whites fled an expensive, bourgeois lifestyle for the urban wilderness of the Lower East Side. Throughout its long and complex history, the Lower East Side has thus come to represent both the compulsion to assimilate American culture, and the drive to rebel against it.

Mario Maffi here presents us with a captivating picture of the Lower East Side from the unique perspective of an outsider. The product of a decade of research, "Gateway to the Promised Land" will appeal to cultural historians, urban, and American historians, and anyone concerned with the challenges America, as an increasingly multicultural society, faces.

Discover hidden gems around Manchester with 20 walking routes. Featuring 20 walks in and around the city, including lesser-known circuits and details on popular walks. Accompanied by guided walking instructions and written by a local expert, A-Z Manchester Hidden Walks is the perfect way to explore the city in a new light. Small enough to fit in a bag or pocket, this handy guidebook is ideal for tourists or locals looking to discover more about the city. Each route varies in length from 1 to 6 miles (1.6 to 9.6 km), and is clearly outlined on detailed A-Z street mapping. 20 walking routes with instructions and maps Full-colour photographs of hidden gems and city attractions Key sights and locations clearly marked on map Information such as start/finish points, nearest postcodes, distance and terrain included More from the A-Z Hidden Walks series: A-Z Birmingham Hidden Walks A-Z Bristol & Bath Hidden Walks A-Z Edinburgh Hidden Walks A-Z London Hidden Walks A-Z Oxford Hidden Walks A-Z York Hidden Walks A-Z Brighton Hidden Walks A-Z Cambridge Hidden Walks A-Z Manchester Hidden Walks A-Z Liverpool Hidden Walks

Reveals the little known history of one of history's most famous maps - and its maker Tucked away in a near-forgotten collection, Virginia and Maryland as it is Planted and Inhabited is one of the most extraordinary maps of colonial British America. Created by a colonial merchant, planter, and diplomat named Augustine Herrman, the map pictures the Mid-Atlantic in breathtaking detail, capturing its waterways, coastlines, and communities. Herrman spent three decades travelling between Dutch New Amsterdam and the English Chesapeake before eventually settling in Maryland and making this map. Although the map has been reproduced widely, the history of how it became one of the most famous images of the Chesapeake has never been told. A Biography of a Map in Motion uncovers the intertwined stories of the map and its maker, offering new insights into the creation of empire in North America. The book follows the map from the waterways of the Chesapeake to the workshops of London, where it was turned into a print and sold. Transported into coffee houses, private rooms, and government offices, Virginia and Maryland became an apparatus of empire that allowed English elites to imaginatively possess and accurately manage their Atlantic colonies. Investigating this map offers the rare opportunity to recapture the complementary and occasionally conflicting forces that created the British Empire. From the colonial and the metropolitan to the economic and the political to the local and the Atlantic, this is a fascinating exploration of the many meanings of a map, and how what some saw as establishing a sense of local place could translate to forging an empire.

From a rediscovered collection of priceless autobiographical accounts written by hundreds of pioneer women, Joanna Stratton has made a remarkable and widely celebrated book. Never before has there been such a detailed record of women's courage, such a living portrait of the women who civilized the American frontier. Here are their stories: wilderness mothers, schoolmarms, Indian squaws, immigrants, homesteaders, and circuit riders. Their personal recollections of prairie fires, locust plagues, cowboy shootouts, Indian raids, and blizzards on the plains vividly reveal the drama, danger and excitement of the pioneer experience.

These were women of relentless determination, whose tenacity helped them to conquer loneliness and privation. Their work was the work of survival, it demanded as much from them as from their men -- and at last that partnership has been recognized. "These voices are haunting" (New York Times Book Review), and they reveal the special heroism and industriousness of pioneer women as never before.

During the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century a growing number of ordinary citizens had the feeling that all was not as it should be. Men who were making money made prodigious amounts, but this new wealth somehow passed over the heads of the common people. As this new breed of journalists began to examine their subjects with scrutiny, they soon discovered that those individuals were essentially "simple men of extraordinary boldness." And it was easy to understand how they were able to accomplish their sinister purposes: "at first abruptly and bluntly, by asking and giving no quarter, and later with the same old determination and ruthlessness but with educated satellites who were glad to explain and idealize their behavior."[i] "Nothing is lost save honor," said one infamous buccaneer, and that was an attitude that governed the amoral principles and extralegal actions of many audacious scoundrels. Relying on secondary sources, magazine and newspaper articles, and personal accounts from those involved, this volume captures some of the sensational true stories that took place in the western United States during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. The theme that runs through each of the stories is the general contempt for the law that seemed to pervade the culture at the time and the consuming desire to acquire wealth at any cost-what Geoffrey C. Ward has called "the disposition to be rich." ------------------------------------------------------------ End Notes Introduction [i]Louis Filler, Crusaders for American Liberalism (Yellow Springs, OH: Antioch Press, 1964), 14.

Oxford Botanic Garden has occupied its central Oxford site next to the river Cherwell continuously since its foundation in 1621 and is the UK's oldest botanic garden. The birthplace of botanical science in the UK, it has been a leading centre for research since the 1600s. Today, the garden holds a collection of over 5,000 different types of plant, some of which exist nowhere else and are of international conservation importance. This guide explores Oxford Botanic Garden's many historic and innovative features, from the walled garden to the waterlily pool, the glasshouses, the rock garden, the water garden and 'Lyra's bench'. It also gives a detailed explanation of the medicinal and taxonomic beds and special plant collections. Lavishly illustrated with photographs taken throughout the seasons, this book not only provides a fascinating historical overview but also offers a practical guide to the Oxford Botanic Garden and its work today. Featuring a map of the entire site and a historical timeline, it is guaranteed to enhance any visit, and is also a beautiful souvenir to take home.

In The Rise and Fall of Protestant Brooklyn, Stuart M. Blumin and Glenn C. Altschuler tell the story of nineteenth-century Brooklyn's domination by upper- and middle-class Protestants with roots in Puritan New England. This lively history describes the unraveling of the control they wielded as more ethnically diverse groups moved into the "City of Churches" during the twentieth century. Before it became a prime American example of urban ethnic diversity, Brooklyn was a lovely and salubrious "town across the river" from Manhattan, celebrated for its churches and upright suburban living. But challenges to this way of life issued from the sheer growth of the city, from new secular institutions-department stores, theaters, professional baseball-and from the licit and illicit attractions of Coney Island, all of which were at odds with post-Puritan piety and behavior. Despite these developments, the Yankee-Protestant hegemony largely held until the massive influx of Southern and Eastern European immigrants in the twentieth century. As The Rise and Fall of Protestant Brooklyn demonstrates, in their churches, synagogues, and other communal institutions, and on their neighborhood streets, the new Brooklynites established the ethnic mosaic that laid the groundwork for the theory of cultural pluralism, giving it a central place within the American Creed.

Explore the remarkable history of one of the jewels of the US National Park system California's Northern Channel Islands, sometimes called the American Galapagos and one of the jewels of the US National Park system, are a located between 20 and 44 km off the southern California mainland coast. Celebrated as a trip back in time where tourists can capture glimpses of California prior to modern development, the islands are often portrayed as frozen moments in history where ecosystems developed in virtual isolation for tens of thousands of years. This could not, however, be further from the truth. For at least 13,000 years, the Chumash and their ancestors occupied the Northern Channel Islands, leaving behind an archaeological record that is one of the longest and best preserved in the Americas. From ephemeral hunting and gathering camps to densely populated coastal villages and Euro-American and Chinese historical sites, archaeologists have studied the Channel Island environments and material culture records for over 100 years. They have pieced together a fascinating story of initial settlement by mobile hunter-gatherers to the development of one of the world's most complex hunter-gatherer societies ever recorded, followed by the devastating effects of European contact and settlement. Likely arriving by boat along a "kelp highway," Paleocoastal migrants found not four offshore islands, but a single super island, Santarosae. For millennia, the Chumash and their predecessors survived dramatic changes to their land- and seascapes, climatic fluctuations, and ever-evolving social and cultural systems. Islands Through Time is the remarkable story of the human and ecological history of California's Northern Channel Islands. We weave the tale of how the Chumash and their ancestors shaped and were shaped by their island homes. Their story is one of adaptation to shifting land- and seascapes, growing populations, fluctuating subsistence resources, and the innovation of new technologies, subsistence strategies, and socio-political systems. Islands Through Time demonstrates that to truly understand and preserve the Channel Islands National Park today, archaeology and deep history are critically important. The lessons of history can act as a guide for building sustainable strategies into the future. The resilience of the Chumash and Channel Island ecosystems provides a story of hope for a world increasingly threatened by climate change, declining biodiversity, and geopolitical instability.